


In the Woods

by Sangerin



Category: Into the Woods - Sondheim/Lapine
Genre: Community: 52fandoms, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-19
Updated: 2010-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anything can happen in the woods.  (Originally posted 28th June, 2009)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Woods

There are roses in the woods. Roses twisting up the walls of a high tower, here and there a blonde hair caught among the thorns. And although the girl in the golden dress was running away from you before, she stops at the sight of the tower and its roses, tipping her head back to gaze up the height of the tower wall.

'I shouldn't like to live there,' she says.

'It would at least be a roof,' you reply, thinking that in such a tower there would be no room for an oven, and thus there would be no bread to bake.

'I suppose,' says the girl.

You've already begun to think her rather dim, with her lack of interest in a Prince who clearly was interested in her. What girl wouldn't want to be wanted by a Prince? This girl, it seemed. With her rich brown hair and her golden dress and slim ankles… her smooth face and yet work-roughened hands. (You know about her hands because you grabbed one, trying to keep her from running away with the slipper you need. No noblewoman has work-worn hands like hers. And yet she is beloved of a Prince. The world, you note, is not meant to work this way.)

She has stopped running. And because of this you are able to walk to her side and take up her hand, as rough as you'd remembered it.

'How is it, my Lady,' you dare, startling yourself with your words, 'That your hands are as rough as any peasant woman's?'

The girl looks down to her hand, held gently in yours. 'My mother died,' she says.

'I don't understand.'

'My mother died, and my father re-married. And his new wife put me to work in the kitchen.'

'Poor child,' you say, and lift her hand to your mouth, and kiss the calloused pads of flesh at the base of each finger.

She watches you calmly, without looking away or seeming at all uncomfortable.

'But why,' you ask, 'Do you not wish to marry the Prince? Surely you would rather a castle than a kitchen hearth?'

She shrugs, 'I guess. I never thought much about it. Until the Prince...'

'Yes?'

'Well, until he looked at me and wouldn't stop looking.'

'You're a young woman well worth looking at,' you reply, and you find that you mean it.

'Truly?'

'Sincerely.'

And her eyes open wide, her brown, brown eyes; and she raises her hand – her other hand – to your cheek, which she brushes with the backs of her fingers.

'My mother – before she died – told me stories of these woods,' she says. 'She loved them so. And yet feared them, too. Anything can happen in the woods.'

You nod. 'May I kiss you?'

'I suppose,' says the girl, hesitating, and you barely know what drew you to ask such a question, only her lips were so full and red before you, and when you lower your own to hers it's such a completely different sensation. No half-day's beard; no flour smudging; no taste of stale yeast. Only soft lips and sweet breath and skin as smooth as silk.

You raise a hand, cupping her cheek, and when the kiss deepens, you're not entirely sure whether it is you or she who takes the initiative. But it's her tongue running lightly across your upper teeth, and your hand seeking the small of her back, to pull her body against yours.

She pulls back. 'You are married, yes?' she asks.

'And you are pursued by a Prince,' you answer, no more than a statement of fact.

'Were you not, and were I not,' she begins, punctuating her words with gentle kisses along your jawbone before she once again shifts back, to hold your gaze.

You can sense her question, and although you've never thought of it before, you know your answer before she has asked. 'I would,' you say, and the glow of her smile makes you glad of your response.

Your world is not meant to work this way. And yet - anything can happen in the woods.


End file.
